Foot Fault!

So yesterday, during the Charleston final, news broke that in addition to her wrist/shoulder injury picked up in Miami and Indian Wells, Kim recently fell while dancing in heels at a wedding, twisting her ankle and leaving her a huge doubt for the French Open.

Usually, the idea of Kim jivin’ around at someone’s wedding, possibly drunk, and then embarassing herself by falling down would be at least semi-funny, but at this point it’s just depressing. Everything looked so exciting eighteen months ago with what we thought would be the resurgence of one of the greatest four-way rivalries in either tour’s history. But now just look at them.

Six months into her comeback, Justine was essentially finished as a tennis player after slipping on the Wimbledon grass and injuring her elbow beyond repair. Then Serena quickly followed, stepping on glass at a restaurant which would leave her injured for the next 8 months. Then pretty much as soon as she was finally out of the medical boot and prepping for a comeback, bloodclots formed in that inactive foot and threatened her life by flying all the way up into her lungs and causing a heamatoma in her stomach. Then we watched as Venus, live at the Australian Open, let out a blood-cudling, heartwrenching scream as she injured a body part that no one even knew existed. And then this week Kim rounded it off appropriately by picking up her own freak injury.

(6:12)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EShZWxFfPb0

Surely this is unprecedented in any sport? Not just the fact that four women who have combined to win 31 singles slams and well over $100m in prize money alone are all out cold with injuries, but also the nature of those injuries and the magnitude of them.

Can you imagine if Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro (that’s 28 slams) were all simultaneously wiped out with freak injuries on the men’s side? It would be complete mayhem, and that’s how it is right now on the WTA. Sure, there are a load of other great personalities and players on the tour, but as much as I want to say that they’ve all siezed the opportunity with the generation’s greats out of the picture, most just seem to be unable to find form even close to the previous highs they reached when the ‘big 4′ were constantly forcing them to better themselves.

It’s really a sign that things are bad when it’s gotten to the point where most commentators are seemingly spending more time hypothetically discussing how Venus, Serena and Kim would fare if they weren’t injured, as opposed to talking about the actual matches they’ve been paid to talk about. But at this point, can you really blame them?

I can’t, and so get well soon, you three. You’re needed.